Celtic: Board have huge job as continuity becomes key after Ange Postecoglou exit

Ange Postecoglou wasn’t wrong when he said in February that people would be “surprised at how long I’m here”. Here, of course, being Celtic. It’s been fewer than four months since he uttered those words, so yes, in a sense, his departure to Spurs is a surprise right enough.

When he stood outside Celtic Park on the final day of the league season and quoted Tommy Burns, he gave the impression of a man who was going nowhere. In this day and age, the good ones always go, though. No matter the proclamations of devotion, ambitious managers are only passing through, the fans are the one constant. They never, ever trade up.

The big question is how much of a bombshell all of this is to those on the inside. This was not the first, second, third or even fourth time the Celtic board have seen Postecoglou being linked with a move to England, each story connecting him with Leicester City, Leeds United, Everton, Crystal Palace, Southampton, Chelsea, Southampton and Wolves turning out to be a bottle of smoke, until one didn’t. Tottenham Hotspur.

As soon as it was established that Spurs were serious about the Australian being their choice to fix a club that has badly lost its way, there was only ever going to be one outcome. Postecoglou clutched his heart in celebration at Hampden, but his head was already drifting down the road to London.

‘Might challenge’ facing Celtic

Joe Lewis, the billionaire majority shareholder of Spurs, has acknowledged in the past that Dermot Desmond, the billionaire majority shareholder of Celtic, is a friend of his. A trillion pennies for their thoughts now and for these past few weeks.

This is a mighty challenge for Desmond, his chairman Peter Lawwell and his chief executive Michael Nicholson. Their pillar has been removed, the man who never stops has stopped, the leader who made all of the woes of the 10-in-a-row-season-that-wasn’t go away has himself gone away.

Celtic have achieved dramatic success in the last two years, but the memory of 2020-21 and the footballing horrors contained within will not have left them. They might have had flashbacks in the last few days. The slapstick signings, the awful results, the fury of the fans, the unmistakable feeling of a club losing its direction and identity.

Postecoglou clicked his fingers and made all of it disappear. He took charge. He signed brilliantly, he led strongly, he created not just a winning team but an adventurous and entertaining team, he reconnected the fans with their football club and he took the heat off his bosses. He gave Desmond peace of mind. The club was in the safest hands. The supporters were no longer placing banners with his face in the centre of a target outside the ground.

Postecoglou had it surrounded. He was manager and motivator, recruiter and statesman. He was three and four guys in one. And he made it look easy.

All of that is compromised now. All bets are off. Desmond, Lawwell and Nicholson will have hoped for at least another season from Postecoglou but, equally, they’ll have known that an ambitious 57-year-old with a burgeoning reputation wasn’t going to hang about if a big club in England came calling.

So is there a succession plan? After the drawn-out process in replacing Neil Lennon – a 107-day marathon that caused supporter outrage – have lessons been learned? Were Celtic ready for this, or as ready as they could be? Is there a list? Will the appointment be speedy? Or were they caught on the hop?

It’s not just one hole you’re trying to plug. He’s the guy who signed most of the players to play a specific type of football. He’s the guy who understands how those players tick. He’s the guy who looked at the ailing careers of Joe Hart and Cameron Carter-Vickers and brought them back to life. They love him for that. He’s the guy who brought Kyogo Furuhashi, Reo Hatate and Daizen Maeda over from Japan and through his command of their language and an understanding of their culture helped make them instant successes. They are devoted to him.

He’s the guy who turned Greg Taylor into a fine left-back, who developed Matt O’Riley, who found and improved Jota and Liel Abada and put them together with Kyogo in the starting line-up on their treble-winning day at Hampden. All three scored. In their two seasons at the club, that trio has delivered almost 170 goals and assists combined.

Continuity key for Celtic

There is talk of Postecoglou wanting to take some of his assistants with him to Spurs. It’s not something he usually does, but the word is that John Kennedy and others might go. Celtic are resisting that and no wonder.

Losing Postecoglou is tough enough but if they also lose a coterie of coaches who the players know and trust then that only adds to the conundrum Celtic face. They’d have no continuity, no wise counsel to mark the card of the incoming manager and tell him of the personalities he has in his dressing room. Celtic needed a whole new beginning in 2021 when Postecoglou arrived, but they don’t need it now.

‘I’m choosing to be selfish’ – Postecoglou

Postecoglou ducked and dived under questioning at the weekend, as he had to do, but it was obvious before the Scottish Cup final and even more obvious after it that his move to north London was a fait accompli. This is not an exit to the Premier League in the Brendan Rodgers mould. It’s not a sudden departure mid-season to a club that Celtic fans could call mediocre, as some did in their fantastically melodramatic banner when Rodgers vanished down the road – ‘You traded immortality for mediocrity. Never a Celt. Always a fraud’.

This was a move to one of the giants of the English game, confirmed only when the treble was completed. It’s not an easy one for the fans to take, but it’s slightly easier. None of the visceral hatred that descended on Rodgers has been revisited. Postecoglou has been serenaded not savaged.

Two years on from speculating about a new manager in the post-Lennon age they’re at it again, names tumbling out from every corner of the map, an encyclopaedic knowledge about an array of people and their coaching philosophies and contractual arrangements being presented for debate.

From Kjetil Knutsen to Enzo Maresca, from Peter Bosz to Francesco Farioli, from Gerardo Seoane to Pascal Jensen and onwards to Philippe Clement, Patrick Vieira, Graham Potter, Kevin Muscat, Michael Carrick, Marcello Gallardo, David Moyes and, of course, Rodgers.

Some cleverclogs on social media, jokingly preparing the ground for a return of the Northern Irishman who once said his greatest dream was to manage Celtic before saying that he would give his life for Leicester, reworked an image of the banner and made it – ‘You traded mediocrity for immortality. Always a Celt. Never a fraud.’

Ange Postecoglou looks set for a warmer welcome back to Parkhead than Brendan Rodgers

Even in worrying times, there’s always room for dark comedy in Glasgow. Currently you can read stories saying that Rodgers is interested, might be interested or is not interested at all. Everybody’s guessing.

Kennedy might become an interesting player in all of this. The players like and respect him. He’s worked under Rodgers and Postecoglou and both of them rate him highly. He offers stability and cohesion. To head Spurs off at the pass, does he become a serious candidate to replace his old boss? The continuity candidate?

Postecoglou has left behind a champion team that’s just created a piece of history. On the pitch and off, the fundamentals are extremely strong, but how quickly that can change when poor decisions are made. Things can unravel in the relative blink of an eye. For Celtic fans, season 2020-21 is an everlasting reminder of that.

The hierarchy didn’t want this day to come so soon, but their response is all that matters now. It’s the biggest call they’ve had to make at the club in two largely blissful years. The irony is that the most pressure the club has been under in two dominant seasons has been created by the exit of the man who relieved all that pressure in the first place.